


Don’t Hex Me, Bro! (Or, Harry Potter And The “Daily Show” Defense)

by queenfanfiction



Series: my pundits are magical though [1]
Category: Fake News FPF, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, magic!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:41:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenfanfiction/pseuds/queenfanfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Oliver is not who he seems to be—but then, quite a few of his coworkers are keeping a similar secret. When John’s past finally comes back to haunt him on the job, it’s up to John and his friends to defend <em>The Daily Show</em> for the first (and hopefully the last) time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Please try to tell me that [THIS PICTURE](http://platzer-twinimages.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/Writers-Guild-Awards-Feb-7-2009/G00004AuE3jC5oAM/I0000l1q4i9LyhYE) does not make John look like Harry Potter, and Kate look like THE HOTTEST THING EVER ZOMG. And yes, there *IS* a sequel in the works, for those who were wondering. :D

**2010**

John opened the door to his office one afternoon, still laughing over a joke Wyatt had made on their way back from lunch, and found an owl staring at him from his desk.

“What the—!” Wyatt grabbed John by the arm and yanked him back out of the doorway, then yelled down the hall, “Security! Security! We have an intruder!”

“For Christ’s sake, Wyatt, could you possibly be any louder?” John extracted himself from Wyatt’s grasp and pointed at the owl, which was still sitting quietly and hadn’t budged an inch. “It’s just a _bird._ Probably flew in through the window, got lost, that’s all. I can take care of it.”

“No, don’t get close!” Wyatt waved his hands about. “I bet it has bird flu or something!”

The owl blinked and hooted indignantly. John sighed, resisting the urge to bang his head against the doorframe. “Look, just trust me on this, OK? I know a lot about ow—”

“John!” Rory came running down the hallway, a folder stuffed full of loose papers in his hand. “John, we’re doing some last-minute script tweaks, can you take a holy _shit_ is that a live owl in your office?”

“Yes! Yes! Now please, just go! Both of you!” John shooed Wyatt out of the way and got safely into his office. “I can handle this on my own! Rory, give me fifteen, I’ll see you in your office, yeah?”

And with that, he slammed the door in his friends’ surprised faces.

After a moment’s thought, he also pulled out a wand from the pocket of his jeans and cast two locking spells and a silencing charm at his office door.

“You’ll have to excuse my friends,” John said to the owl as he put away his wand. “Americans, you know how they are—completely barbaric. Anyway. I assume you have something for me?”

The owl clicked its beak in the affirmative, then stuck out its right leg. John carefully unrolled the parchment tightly coiled around the owl’s foot (would wizards _never_ understand the benefits of modern printing paper?), broke through the wax seal that had kept the scroll closed, and unfurled the high-quality parchment until it lay flat on his desk.

 _“Dear Mr. Harry James Potter, reigning Lord of the House of Potter, titular Lord of the House of Black, Defeater of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class, et cetera, et cetera:_

 _“As you should be aware, new legislation awaiting what is sure to be unanimous passage in the Wizengamot will ensure that the current drain of wizarding talent from Britain to other less-civilized nations would be halted permanently, and all other British nationals by birth would be called back to live and work in their fatherland where they rightfully belong._

 _“Therefore, the newly-formed Committee on the Legality of Emigrating Wizards (CLEW) wishes to question you on your current legal status following your emigration to the United States of America in the year two-thousand-and-six for occupational reasons, according to the visa application the Ministry has on file. Your hearing is scheduled for a week from this Thursday, the sixteenth of September in the year two-thousand-and-ten at ten o’clock in the morning, in Courtroom Ten of the Ministry of Magic. The possibility of your return to the United States will be decided at the hearing. Please be careful to notify any family and employers of the reasons for your departure within the rules outlined by the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy._

 _“I remain, as always, respectfully yours,_

 _Dolores Jane Umbridge  
Chairwoman, Committee on the Legality of Emigrating Wizards  
Ministry of Magic, Great Britain.”_

John read the letter once, twice, and finally a third time to make sure he hadn’t been imagining things. Only then did he reach for his mobile and speed-dial a call (though by now he could have entered the number in his sleep).

There was an answer by the end of the first ring. “Mandvi speaking.”

“Aasif, it’s me.” John pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been keeping up with news from the homeland, haven’t you?”

“Well, yeah. Hard to get a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ these days, but I do what I can. Why?”

“Maybe you can explain something to me.” John took a deep breath. “What great _FUCKERY_ has been going on in the Ministry since I left, Aasif?”

The owl, who had been busy inspecting a chipped corner of John’s desk, suddenly squeaked and toppled off the edge in a flurry of feathers.

 

 **2006**

There was a light tapping on his office door, and John glanced up from editing the week’s script. “Yeah?”

The door opened, and Jon stuck his head in. “Oliver! This a bad time?”

“No, not really.” John set down his pen and glanced at the clock. “I’m free until the dress rehearsal. What can I do for you?”

“Perfect! I was hoping you could give our newest correspondent the backstage tour.” Jon opened the door wider and ushered a Middle-Eastern man into John and Rob’s shared office (Rob was on assignment for the week, which meant John could spread out his things and watch football at loud volumes on their telly without incurring the wrath of the former Marine). “Aasif Mandvi, John Oliver. John Oliver, Aasif Mandvi. Aasif grew up in England, so I figured you two would have something to talk about.”

Throughout Jon’s introductions, Aasif had been staring at John with wide eyes. “Oh my _god,_ ” he said. “You—you’re Ha—”

“Why, yes, I _am_ John Oliver,” John said loudly, clapping Aasif on the shoulder before his new coworker could say more. “Wow, Jon, I’m impressed—I think you’ve just hired my one and only fan in the entire world!”

Jon giggled. “Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. John, Aasif is doing his first piece tonight, so if you could get him to make-up early and see what they want to do with him...”

“I’ll make sure he’s glowing before he goes onstage, never fear,” John promised, and he was never so relieved as he was then to see their host walk out of the office, closing the door behind him with a quiet _click._

John waited for a full five seconds (just to be safe) before getting out his wand and muttering, “ _Muffliato!_ ” The sounds of disjointed conversation from the hallway outside immediately faded into nothingness.

“Right, then.” John pocketed his wand and leaned back against his desk. “Go ahead, you can say it now.”

Aasif, who had been frozen stiff the entire time, suddenly collapsed into the chair opposite John’s desk. “Y-you—you’re Harry Potter!” he gasped, eyes never leaving John’s face. “You’re the _Boy Who Lived!_ ”

“The very same.” John crossed his arms, suddenly feeling very weary. He hadn’t been recognized by his real name for almost eleven years, and he found that he hadn’t missed the feeling of being famous one bit. “How did you know?”

“I-I went to Hogwarts, too!” Aasif pointed to himself. “Hufflepuff, Class of 1984—or I would’ve been, if I hadn’t moved to Florida after fifth year. But—my cousins, they were in your year, and they talked about you all the time! Parvati and Padma Patil, do you remember them?”

“The Patil twins? Of course I do!” If he studied Aasif carefully, John could just make out the shape of Parvati’s eyes and a hint of Padma’s grin. “How’ve they been?”

“Oh, they’re doing well! Padma went into accounting, she’s one of the supervisors at Gringotts, and Parvati’s been teaching Divination at Hogwarts for two years now.” Aasif gestured to his own forehead. “I almost thought you were someone else when I didn’t see that scar, but everything else looks exactly the same as your pictures from Hogwarts.”

“Oh, that!” John self-consciously pushed his hair down farther, as if to hide the scar that he hadn’t had for years. “Yeah, I went and got plastic surgery once I left the wizarding world. Curse scars aren’t easy to hide with make-up, and glamours can fade or get cursed off, you see.”

“Ah. Wow.” Aasif tilted his head curiously. “Wait. You—left? Haven’t you been back? Ever?”

“Nope.” John shrugged. “Didn’t even go back to Hogwarts to finish my seventh year. Once Voldemort—” Aasif flinched. “Oh, please, he’s been dead for more than a decade! Anyway, with him gone, there wasn’t much need for me to go back. I just—decided to leave. Got into Cambridge, took up acting, moved here, and haven’t looked back since. I use magic at home sometimes, and I visit Britain for work, but that’s it.”

“Oh.” Aasif fidgeted for a moment, then blurted out, “But—why? Why comedy, of all things? You could’ve done anything, been anyone—why this?”

John took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly, more to buy himself time than anything else. “You know,” he said once he’d put his glasses back on, “I spent the first eighteen years of my life as the front-man and poster-boy for one of the bloodiest wars in wizarding history. You’re, what, a few years older than me?”

“Ten or eleven, I think.”

“All right. That means you were around during the First War as well as the Second.” John huffed. “I can’t speak for the First War, I obviously wasn’t around then, but I can safely say that the Second War was pretty damn bad. I lost my whole family, a third of my classmates from my year alone, and some of the best teachers at Hogwarts—all because a sociopath decided it would be fun to channel Hitler.”

Aasif nodded, looking grave. “I remember, yeah.”

“Once it was all over,” John continued, “I looked around, and I knew things had to change, or we’d go right back to fighting amongst ourselves. Guess what? Almost no one I knew was willing to change to save themselves, not even after the hellacious war we’d just finished. And if there was one thing I knew I was never going to do, it was watching my world fall to pieces all over again.”

John sighed and studied his hands. “So, I left. I haven’t regretted it, for the most part. Nobody’s recognized me until you came along, and now I spend the better part of my time saying exactly what I feel about the hypocrisies of the world while making people laugh—while making people _happy,_ for once.” John looked at Aasif. “Is there any job better than this?” he asked softly. “Really, is there?”

Aasif didn’t respond, which to John was answer enough.

John cleared his throat, pushing himself away from his desk and offering a hand to Aasif with a smile. “Anyway. Welcome to _The Daily Show,_ ” he said. “I’m John, and I’m sure you’re going to _love_ it here.”

Aasif took John’s hand with a grin of his own. “I’m Aasif,” he replied, shaking John’s hand firmly, “and I’m sure I will.”

 

 **2010**

“It’s unbe-fucking- _lievable,_ ” John was shouting into his phone. “Umbridge was supposed to be rotting in Azkaban, not be chairwoman of her own goddamn committee!”

“Look, John, I know how you feel, but I can expl—”

“—and this committee of hers, let me tell you, she doesn’t have a _CLEW_ what she’s gotten herself into this time—”

“John? John!”

“—stupid bureaucrats, stupid politics, this is why I _left_ Britain in the first place—”

“HARRY!”

John shut up.

“Thank you,” Aasif said dryly. “Now, if you’d let me talk for just a few minutes, I can try to explain the problem here. You really haven’t been paying attention to anything back home, have you?”

“Not since I left, no.” John tugged at his hair in frustration. “Should I have?”

“Actually, that might not have been such a bad idea.” Aasif sighed. “Oh-kay, so. After You-Know-Who was offed and half the Ministry got sent to Azkaban _and_ you conveniently disappeared, there was a pretty big power vacuum left in the British wizarding government. Kingsley Shacklebolt and Arthur Weasley tried to fill it, but they were only two people, and two easily-stepped-on people at that. They did their best to fix things after the war was over, but they could hardly find people willing to cooperate with them, much less get anything done. Once elections rolled around in 2000, their coalition government didn’t even stand a chance.”

“Let me guess,” John deadpanned. “The Tea Party took over.”

“Not quite, but you’re close,” Aasif said. “The Prime Minister candidate who won was completely unknown, a guy called Hubert Luffberger, but he was conveniently backed by the limitless funds of one Lucius Malfoy.”

John leaned back in his chair heavily. “ _Fuck._ ”

“Exactly. Luffberger’s opponents accused him of Death Eater ties during the campaign, but most people couldn’t care less if Luffberger was You-Know-Who himself as long as he had absolutely nothing to do with the current establishment. Malfoy used Luffberger to set himself up as the power behind the throne, and he’s stayed behind the winning candidate ever since. It’s been Malfoy who’s been getting a lot of former Death Eaters and war criminals out of Azkaban on parole for ‘good behavior,’ one by one.”

“So what you’re saying is,” John interrupted, already feeling a migraine steadily marching towards his temples, “once I left, they got busy setting up the scenes for a _third_ wizarding war?”

“Pretty much, yeah. From what I can tell, Umbridge’s ideas about Pureblood and full-human status aren’t much better than You-Know-Who’s—there’s just a lot more paperwork involved.”

John slumped. “Just bloody wonderful,” he muttered. “ _Now_ what? I can’t be expected to swoosh in and save the wizarding world from themselves again, Aasif.”

“I don’t expect you to.” Aasif’s tone turned fond. “You’ve already done more than your fair share, and I’ll be one of the first to say ‘good riddance!’ to most of the rotten apples over there. Just don’t get mixed up with this committee business—no matter what Umbridge claims, she doesn’t have as much support as she’d like for her bill. It’s going to forcibly keep wizards from leaving Britain or the wizarding world or both, and hardly anyone wants that. They need you as their poster boy if they want the bill to pass the Wizengamot, and your going would be as good as giving your seal of approval on this whole clusterfuck.”

“Technically, it’s ‘cluster _shag,_ ’ you know that.” John already had his pen out and was scribbling on the back of the parchment summons. “Tell you what, I’m just going to say ‘no.’ Basically. Actually, I’m going to say a little more than that.”

“Ooh!” Aasif sounded positively delighted. “Do tell!”

John cleared his throat. “Dear Madam Chairwoman,” he read aloud as his pen skipped across the parchment. “I was most delighted to hear from you, as I haven’t thought of you since the days you were a professor at Hogwarts and I was your favorite student—to be tortured. I’ve often wondered whether you ever went back into teaching, as you did a fine job of attempting to turn Hogwarts into a new class of the Hitler Youth. Oh, that’s right, you wouldn’t know who Hitler is. Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for your kind invitation of free one-way travel back to Britain, but I’m afraid I will have to decline. As my esteemed colleagues here in New York would say, take this piece of bullshit and stick it deep where the sun don’t shine. I am, respectfully, sincerely, et cetera, Harry James Potter.”

On the other end, Aasif was having trouble breathing, he was laughing so hard. “Sweet Merlin in a jelly jar,” he wheezed. “If you don’t send that to her, I will _never_ speak to you again.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Mandvi.” John pursed his lips and whistled; the owl dutifully hopped back onto his desk and held out its leg while John attached his response for a safe trip home. “Feel free to shit on it as much as you’d like,” John told the bird.

The owl merely turned up its beak at him and flew off through the open window without so much as another chirp. John watched the owl’s progress until it was just a gray speck between the tall buildings surrounding the studios, then went over to the window and made sure it was safely closed and fastened shut.

“Owls are such prudes these days,” he said into his phone as he walked back to his desk. “Anyway. Where was I?”

John stopped talking when he noticed his doorknob frantically rattling. He waved off the silencing charm (but left the locking spells intact) and called, “Yes?”

“John?” Rory’s voice was muffled through the wood. “It’s been over half-an-hour already, and we really should talk...”

“Oh! Right, sorry, forgot about that!” John hastily stood up from his desk. “Aasif, I have to run. Comedy calls.”

“Yeah, same here.” Aasif laughed. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Ta,” said John, and he cut off the call before finishing off the last of the locking charms on his door. Within five minutes, John was so engrossed in script revisions that he’d forgotten that owls even existed, much less that one had stopped by his office to deliver him a letter.

* *

The sun was just rising over the London skyline as the owl bearing John’s reply swooped into an office somewhere deep in the bowels of the Ministry of Magic and landed on the desk of a very harried-looking secretary. She took the letter from the owl without ceremony and deposited the parchment into a chute under her desk without looking at it twice.

The letter fluttered down the chute and was promptly spat out into the lap of a pudgy woman who looked as if at least a third of her ancestors had once been toads. She carefully took the parchment, frowning upon seeing her own handwriting on the outside (as John had been kind enough to conserve parchment by replying on the same letter that had been sent to him), and unrolled it just enough to read the scrawled contents inside.

After a minute, she crumpled the parchment in her tiny fists. “Hem hem,” she said. “I see Mister Potter will not cooperate. Very well, then.”

She turned in her seat to face the two towering guard-wizards stationed behind her. “Go and assemble the strike team,” Dolores Umbridge ordered. “Perhaps Potter will finally learn to see reason. We shall see.”

A smile flitted across her face as her guards left her office in silence, and it was not a nice smile at all.


	2. Part Two

**2010**

“John! John, wait up!”

John was already halfway through the staff entrance off of 52nd Street when Aasif caught up to him, panting as if he’d run the entire length of New Jersey. Aasif gratefully stumbled through the doorway as John held the door open, then doubled over and wheezed for air while clutching at the stitch in his side.

“Thanks—sorry—stupid—subway,” Aasif gasped as John pounded on his back. “Damn thing—stuck in a tunnel—had to get off—foot the rest of the way—”

“See, this is why I’ve told you again and again, you should just Apparate to work.”

Aasif glared up at John. “You do realize this is New York, right?” he huffed, slipping into a light London accent as he often did when he got excited. “Every street is packed with Muggles and whatnot—even if I aimed for an alley, I’d probably just squash some little old lady getting her groceries out of her car or something. You know what they say: when in Rome...”

“Yeah, well, Rome probably had a better public transportation system than we do.” John helped Aasif up and brushed a few stray leaves off the other man’s jacket. “Come on, we’ll be late for the morning meeting if we don’t hurry.”

Aasif glanced at his watch and swore. “I was supposed to look at Josh’s script first, he’s going to _kill_ me!”

John waved his ID at the security guard on their way in, and soon both men were past the barrier and jogging down the corridor towards the secure elevators that would take them to the writing offices upstairs.

Neither man noticed when, back in the room where the security guard had cleared them, a flash of green light silently exploded before the surveillance tower went dark. But they did notice when, moments after they had stepped out of the elevator, all the power in the building suddenly died.

“The fuck?” John blindly punched the button for the elevator to go back down, but nothing happened. “Is the whole place out?”

“No idea—oof!” Aasif tried to turn around and promptly walked into John. “Sorry, can’t see—wands out, you think?”

“Yeah.” John tried not to think about the last time someone had asked him a similar question as he got out his wand point-first. “ _Lumos!_ ” he muttered, and Aasif echoed him as their combined wand-tips glowed just enough to light up the dark hallway beyond the elevator bay.

“You think everyone else is here somewhere?” Aasif whispered while they inched forward into the shadows.

“Probably,” John whispered back. “Wait, why are we whispering?”

John could barely make out Aasif’s shrug in the dim light from their wands. “Dunno. I felt like it. Say, is it just me or is it getting colder in here?”

Sure enough, John’s breath was starting to frost up in front of his nose and glasses, and he shivered. There was no logical, scientific explanation for such a sudden drop in temperature inside a building in late autumn, unless... “Aasif, do you hear that? Is there anything coming from behind us right now?”

Aasif turned to check, then frowned. “No. Why?”

John shook himself to try to clear his head, but the buzzing that had started moments earlier quickly grew louder and more intense, until it solidified into the sounds of a woman screaming. _“Please, please don’t, not my Harry, NOT MY HARRY!”_

“Aasif, run!” John yelled, a second before something cold and ragged swept down on them, knocking both men to the ground. Their wands clattered on the linoleum and blinked out, plunging them back into darkness.

John rolled onto his back and stared up at the dementor floating just above him, watching in helpless horror as it slowly lowered its hood. His mum’s screams, begging for Voldemort to spare her son, rang in his ears while the dementor’s skeletal mouth descended towards his own (and his wand was just inches away from his outstretched fingertips). “Fuck,” he breathed. “Fuck fuck fuck _fuck—_ ”

“ _EXPECTO PATRONUM!_ ”

Silver light exploded above him, lighting up the entire corridor and sending the dementor flying off to the side with a harsh cry. John caught a glimpse of a lion’s shaggy mane as the Patronus chased the dementor down the empty corridor and out of sight.

John stretched and grabbed his wand before shakily pushing himself up to his knees. Behind him, Aasif was slumped against the wall, panting heavily with his wand still pointed towards the dementor’s retreating back. “Funny,” John croaked. “Didn’t think they had any lions in India.”

“Fuck you,” Aasif retorted, but he did rummage a couple of fun-size chocolate bars out of his pocket before tossing one to John, who tore into it hungrily. “Was that—really what I thought it was?”

“No, it was a joke from Props that just decided to come alive and try to suck our souls out.” John felt a sight improved almost as soon as the chocolate started melting on his tongue. “Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Don’t mention it.” Aasif looked down at his wand as if he couldn’t believe that it was real. “Not gonna lie, I wasn’t sure that was going to work. Never managed a corporeal one before...”

“If you were ever going to have a first time, that was the best timing _ever._ ” John got back on his feet; his knees were still a little weak, but he could at least walk. “This is getting a little creeptastic, even for me,” he declared. “Let’s split up. You go that way—” John pointed in the direction that the dementor had disappeared, “—see where everyone is, get them to shelter. The break room should be big enough, right? I’ll go back the way we came, see what happened and send everyone else your way. Oh, and better keep an eye out for that dementor.”

“Aye aye, captain.” Aasif pushed himself away from the wall. “You stay safe, hear me?”

John saluted in reply before turning and running towards the emergency stairs that were located just beyond the elevator bank. He passed the dark and silent nook where the elevators were in a rush, hardly noticing the shadow that detached itself from the rest and trailed him for a moment before raising its own wand.

“ _Impedimenta!_ ”

John stumbled and hit the ground hard, his glasses knocked askew and his shoulder shrieking in protest when it impacted with the floor. He tried to get back on his feet, but the Impediment Jinx was too strong for him to break through.

It wasn’t until a foot slammed into his stomach, forcibly doubling him over and knocking the wind out of him, that John realized that the voice casting the spell hadn’t been Aasif’s. But it _had_ belonged to someone else familiar.

“Potter,” that voice hissed into his ear now. “Long time, no see, eh?”

“Malfoy,” John gritted out. “The longer, the better.” He tried to roll over, which would have freed up his wand hand, but Draco Malfoy’s foot remained firmly on the small of his back and kept him pinned to the ground. “So what brings you to New York? Wouldn’t expect the likes of you to want any more Muggle filth on your shoes.”

John could almost imagine Draco’s sneer, as unchanged as when they’d been schoolyard enemies. “Believe me, I’m only here for business, not pleasure—although kicking your halfblood arse is pleasure enough for me.”

John forced a laugh. “Oh, that’s right! You must be working for the Ministry now! Good to know welfare’s still strong in jolly old England, when someone as worthless as you can get a well-paying government job thanks to Daddy dearest!”

“Shut your mouth!” Draco snarled. “I’ve got power like you could only dream of, Potter, and you’d do well to remember it.” He knelt down closer, his knees digging into John’s back. “For example,” he whispered, “instead of coming here with my team, I could have just as easily gone to your house. I’ve heard your girlfriend’s quite the looker. The mates and I would _love_ to get to know her better, see what I mean?”

John couldn’t breathe. “No,” he choked. “No. You wouldn’t dare—”

“Oh, but I would.” Draco grabbed John by the hair and yanked his head back viciously. “If you resist arrest,” he hissed, “we’ll just have to take you home first and make you see reason. I’m sure the Madam Chairwoman won’t mind the detour. And of course, our dementor will love the feast your Muggle coworkers are going to give it while we’re gone. Understood?”

Before John had a chance to answer, sounds of running footsteps could be heard coming from the elevator bay. Draco whirled around and yelled, “Over here! I’ve got Potter!”

A moment later, a woman’s voice cried, “ _Stupefy!_ ”

The spell hit Draco right in the chest, and he toppled off of John in a crumpled heap on the floor. John pushed Draco’s legs the rest of the way off of him as the newcomer cautiously approached. “Sam, you—are a miracle,” John panted. “But—aren’t you supposed to be—home with the kids?”

“Lucky for you, Jason’s mom’s in town. Surprise visit.” Sam pocketed her wand and helped John back to his feet. “I was going to bring Jason his lunch since he forgot it _again_ —but it looks like the whole place just falls apart the moment I leave, huh?”

“Very funny. The place would’ve been _fine_ if the Ministry hadn’t put some bloody bounty on my head.” John could already hear the sounds of more footsteps trying to quietly sneak towards them from the direction Sam had come. “And here’s the rest of them,” he added, lowering his voice so that only Sam could hear. “Think we can hold them off?”

“Well, I know I can.” Sam flicked her wand out so fast that John could barely see her hand move. “I have some doubts about you, though. Show me what you got, Brit-boy.”

John grinned. “You’re on,” he said, getting out his own wand and aiming at their would-be attackers. “On three, then. One—two—THREE!”

“ _Incarcerous!_ ” Sam shouted.

John ducked when someone on the other side returned Sam’s volley with a curse of their own. “ _Expelliarmus!_ ” he yelled, rewarded by a surprised yelp from the shadows.

And the fight was on.

 

 **2007**

John was walking down the hall, reading through the next day’s scripts and perfectly minding his own business, when an indignant shout came from the break room up ahead and to his left.

“Hey! Don’t do that—get back here! GET BACK!”

John looked up just in time to see a dark-brown little creature hop out of the open doorway and into the hall in front of him. As he got closer, he realized (with a jolt of surprise) that the creature was actually an honest-to-god Chocolate Frog. He hadn’t seen one of those since, well, he was at Hogwarts.

John spent a few seconds watching the Frog hop around aimlessly before bending down and snatching up the chocolate runaway mid-jump with one hand. He couldn’t hold back a small sense of pride; clearly, he hadn’t yet lost his Seeker’s touch.

“Now, look what we have here,” he said as he made his way to the break room. “You’re a bad little thing, aren’t you? Why don’t we go back inside, and you tell me who you were trying to run away from—”

John walked through the doorway, still addressing the squirming Chocolate Frog, and glanced up to find Sam Bee standing in the middle of the break room with her wand trained on his forehead. They exchanged shocked stares for several seconds before Sam cried, “ _Obliviate!_ ”

Instinctively, John threw his arms up in front of his face in a makeshift cross. The Memory Charm struck the point where his wrists met—

—and sizzled against the invisible shield his arms had formed before dissipating in a burst of magical energy.

John slowly brought his arms down to find Sam still staring at him. “You know,” he finally said, more icily than he’d intended, “that wasn’t very nice of you, was it?”

Sam nearly dropped her wand. “Goddess help me,” she said faintly, lowering herself into an empty chair. “You’re Harry Potter.”

“Right in one.” John sighed and rolled his shoulders, loosening the tension in them from the sudden shield he’d created. “What, are you from Hogwarts, too?”

“Who, me? No.” Sam shuddered. “Montreal Academy of Witchcraft all the way, thank you very much. But your shield charm just now—” She mimicked John’s motion of crossing his arms in front of him so that the arms crossed at the wrists. “I’ve read so many books about the Potter Shield, it’s kind of hard _not_ to recognize it. Your own invention, right? Didn’t it turn the tide against You-Know-Who in the Final Battle?”

“Yeah. It did.” John sheepishly glanced down at his hands, only realizing then that he’d accidentally squished the Chocolate Frog in his hands when he’d created the shield. “Um, sorry, I think I just ruined your Frog—”

Sam waved him off. “It’s fine, you can have it. Mum just sent me a whole box of them, and it’s been forever since I’d had a real one—stupid import laws in New York and all that.” She suddenly blushed. “I might have gotten a little excited and forgot to close the door,” she admitted. “And then when you came in, I was sure it was another Muggle and that means I’d have to Obliviate you if I didn’t want to get deported—”

“What’s this about closing doors when I’m not around?” a voice rumbled from the doorway. John turned to see Jason saunter into the break room and make a beeline for the refrigerator in the corner, pausing only to kiss Sam hello as he passed her. “Better not be making passes at my wife, Oliver, or I’ll be making bangers and mash out of _you._ ”

“Don’t worry about him, he’s just teasing,” Sam said to John. “Jason, honey,” she called to her husband. “It’s all right. John’s one of us.”

Jason peered at John over the door of the refrigerator. “You’re Canadian?”

“No, dear,” Sam sighed before John could respond to that. “He’s a wizard.”

“Wait a second.” John looked back and forth between his Canadian friends. “ _Both_ of you?”

“Nah, not me. Just Sam.” Jason popped the tab of his Diet Coke and took a swig before coming over and throwing an arm around Sam. “My darling little witch can do anything she wants to, can’t she? And you should see the witch’s costume she wears when we’re in b—”

“That’s quite enough from you!” Sam playfully shoved Jason away. “Get back to work, dear.”

Jason laughed and wandered back towards the door. “Stewart wants to see you, honey!” he called over his shoulder. “Asked me to find you!”

“Tell him I’m on my way!” Sam shouted back, then glanced at the table where the empty Chocolate Frog carton lay. She picked it up and shook it until a small trading card fell out in her hand. “Huh,” she said with some surprise. “Looks like I got you.”

“What?” John leaned closer to see. Sure enough, Sam was holding a Second Edition Harry Potter Famous Wizard Card. According to Aasif, those were worth several hundred Galleons by now—and worth several _million_ if they were autographed.

“Congratulations,” he said with a forced smile. “So. Want me to sign it for you?”

Sam studied the card for a moment. “No,” she said, then flipped the card between her fingers. It spun through a few rotations before sailing delicately through the air—

—straight into John’s breast pocket.

Sam patted a stunned John on the shoulder on her way out. “I much prefer having the original,” she said, and kissed him on the cheek before she left.

 

 **2010**

“John, look out!”

At Sam’s warning shout, John dived to the floor, wincing as a curse seared past his left shoulder. He twisted around as he fell, enough to aim at and Stun his opponent before he even hit the ground.

With a grunt, John shoved himself back to his feet in time to see a cloaked figure sneak up on Sam’s unprotected back while she dueled with someone else. “ _Stupefy!_ ” he yelled, and the would-be ambusher went down like a rock.

Sam finished off her opponent with a Full-Body Bind and a well-placed kick to the crotch. “Thanks,” she panted as John came over to admire her handiwork. “Appreciate it.”

“Hey, least I could do.” John crossed his arms and surveyed the corridor, now lined with the unmoving bodies of over a dozen intruders. “That all of them?”

“I think so.” Sam whistled. “Thirteen in all. Did they really think that was going to be enough to take you down?”

“Battle strategy was never the Ministry’s strong point, and especially not Umbridge’s.” John nudged the nearest figure with his foot until the intruder’s hood fell back. “Well, if it isn’t Zacharias Smith! Merlin, I haven’t seen him since Hogwarts!”

“Smith?” Sam wrinkled her nose. “That douchebag? He works at the British Wizarding Consulate on Third Street, and he’s a complete asshole. What’s he doing here?”

“Dunno. Special assignment, maybe?” John slowly went around to the other unconscious figures as he dragged them all into a messy line running down the corridor (with Sam helping) and was able to identify most of them as his rivals from Hogwarts: Malfoy, Smith, Blaise Zabini, Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle, Theodore Nott, Pansy Parkinson, Millicent Bulstrode (though she had lost a great deal of weight than what John remembered), Daphne Greengrass, Tracey Davies...

“Well,” John declared as he stretched out his stiffening back. “This is possibly the worst school reunion _ever._ Should we send them back as a warning, do you think?”

“Hell, why not.” Sam conjured up a very long piece of rope and began tying them around the wrists of every intruder. “You know the coordinates for the Ministry?”

“Who said the Ministry? I’m sending them to inner Mongolia. If they can find a way back to England from there, kudos to them.” John took the rope from Sam and finished off the chain by tying the end to Draco, wordlessly setting up the Portkey charm as he worked, before pointing his wand at Draco’s head. “ _Ennervate!_ Wakey wakey, Malfoy, it’s time to get up!”

Draco groaned and blinked. When he saw John, his eyes narrowed and his hand went for his wand—

—but he yelped when Sam kicked him in the wrist.

“So.” John grinned ferally. “I think your work is done here, yeah? Be thankful I’m only sending the lot of you pathetic dopes back and not hexing you into next year first. Do send my best to Umbridge when you see her!”

“Die in a fire, Potter,” Draco spat, struggling to free himself from the tightly-knotted rope.

“You know, Malfoy, I kinda wish you had,” John said, then activated the Portkey. Draco didn’t even have a chance to answer before he disappeared in a blur of light and colors, along with the rest of his fellow Ministry-workers.

“Now that’s taken care of,” Sam sighed as soon as they were gone. “Where’s Jason?”

“Aasif should have gotten him into the break room with everyone else.” John started running in the direction of the break room with Sam close at his heels. “We had a run-in with a dementor earlier, and fuck all if I know how we’re going to get rid of _that_ without setting it loose on the rest of New York.”

“A dementor?” Sam gasped, horrified. “They brought a dementor with them? John, that’s as good as declaring war!”

“I know! Umbridge has a thing for dementors, though—she already sent a troop of them after me and my cousin when I was fifteen. Look how well that turned out.” As he spoke, John reached the door of the break room and tried to open it, only to find it locked. He pounded on the door and yelled, “Aasif! It’s me! Let us in already!”

Almost a minute later, Aasif opened the door and cautiously peeked out. “John? Sam, is that you?” he asked incredulously. “What’s she doing here?”

“I’m here to bring Jason his lunch,” Sam said briskly as she pushed past Aasif into the dark, crowded room. “Jason?”

“Sweetheart!” Jason rushed forward and pulled Sam into a hug. “Honey, you’re a lifesav—oh my god, peanut-butter-and-jelly’s my _favorite!_ ”

“So I got almost everyone,” Aasif said to John quietly, closing the door behind both of them. “Where’s Stewart?”

“Stewart?” John did a doubletake. “Isn’t he here?”

Aasif frowned. “No, couldn’t find him. I thought he was with you.”

“Excuse me!” Josh called plaintively from the back of the room. “Could someone please explain what the hell is going on here?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt chimed in. “Aasif’s been saying these crazy things about magic and wizards and Harry fucking Potter—”

“—and could someone please figure out why our phones don’t work?” Rory wailed.

John let out an explosive sigh. “We really do _not_ have the time for this, but fine.” He cleared his throat loudly. “Everyone, listen up! Magic is real, like Aasif was kindly trying to tell you, and my name isn’t John. Well, it is, but it wasn’t always. I was born Harry James Potter, there’s a multi-million dollar franchise all about my tragic childhood, and today the British Ministry of Magic sent a strike team and a dementor here to arrest me. Sam and I took care of the strike team, but right now we have a loose dementor that sucks out people’s souls floating through the building, which I’m assuming is what’s knocking out everything electrical, while our esteemed host is wandering about somewhere and is prime bait for said dementor which is also, for all intents and purposes, immortal. Got all that?”

Deafening silence followed until Olivia slowly rose from her chair. “Actually,” she offered, “there might be a way to get rid of the dementor for good. A Patronus can kill them if it’s cast with love, not just with a happy memory.”

Aasif facepalmed and moaned, “Not another one!”

But John considered Olivia thoughtfully. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

Olivia nodded. “There was an article about it in the last edition of the New England Journal of Magic,” she explained. “They tested it through a five-year study on a sample of Azkaban dementors. As far as I know, if you think about someone you love who loves you back when you cast a Patronus, the emotional connection is enough to eat through the dementor and kill it for good.”

“ _Excellent,_ ” John breathed. “Olivia, can you do a corporeal Patronus?” At her nod, he continued, “Then you’re coming with me. Aasif, Sam, you two stay here and keep watch. If the dementor comes this way, kill the damn thing. Olivia and I are going to find Stewart.”

“John!” Sam squeaked, eyes wide. “Are you sure? I’m not—I haven’t cast a real Patronus _ever!_ What if I can’t do it?”

“If she can’t do it, I’m fucked,” Aasif added. “If it’s going to take love, she’s got it by the stone—not me.”

John was about to reply when Jason suddenly spoke up. “Johnny-oh, wait a second here. This Patronawhatchamacallit—you guys said it takes happy thoughts to make it, right?”

“Yeah,” John said slowly. “Why—”

Jason promptly swung Sam into his arms and kissed her so hard that her knees buckled and would’ve given out beneath her had Jason not been holding her in the first place. “There, honey,” he gasped when they finally broke apart. “Try it now.”

Sam, still a little glassy-eyed, nevertheless took out her wand. “ _Expecto Patronum!_ ”

Silver fog gushed forth from Sam’s wand, coalescing into a large bearded cat that bared its sharp fangs around the room, causing Wyatt to shriek like a little girl and several other writers to duck for cover. The Canadian lynx fit Sam perfectly, John thought as he tried not to laugh at the shocked expression on Sam’s face.

Meanwhile, Olivia sauntered over to Aasif and pushed him gently down into her own vacated chair before straddling herself across his lap. Aasif tried to protest, but Olivia merely placed her finger over his lips. “Do you know how long I’ve wanted to do this?” she murmured. “For fucking _ever,_ that’s what.”

And then Olivia snogged Aasif so deeply and with so much tongue that for a moment John was afraid Aasif was going to choke. But Aasif, far from choking, expressed his approval so audibly that even Kristen and Rich stopped making out in the back of the room long enough to stare at the two making out in the front.

“Uh, Aasif, man,” Jason said when Olivia finally got up, leaving Aasif limp and wrung-out in his seat, “while I’m glad she’s making you happy and all that, could you not do it in here? Because I’m pretty sure you’re giving some of us nightmares.”

Olivia merely flipped Jason off as she walked out the door behind John.

* *

Twelve minutes later, John and Olivia had scoured every corner of the writing floor, only to find nothing. They’d even gone down to the first floor and found all three of the security guards dead in their tower, clearly killed by a series of Avada Kedavra curses, but Jon Stewart was nowhere in sight.

“Merlin’s balls!” John moaned on their way back upstairs. “Stewart has to be here somewhere! And that dementor can’t just have disappeared, either! Where the fuck _are_ they?”

“For Stewart’s sake, I hope they’re not together.” Olivia suddenly froze with one foot halfway up to the next step. “Hang on. Did you hear that?”

John stopped and listened. If he pushed himself hard enough, he could just make out the sound of someone (or something) whimpering, a wordless undercurrent of pleading white noise that John had nearly missed. But he and Olivia were alone in a empty stairwell, and the only closest exit was up ahead and led straight to...

“Oh, fuck,” John whispered. “He’s _on the set!_ ”

Olivia was already running up the stairs, but John easily caught up to her when she held open the door. Together, they dashed down the dark corridor, past the guest and dressing rooms, and flung open the door that separated the backstage from the actual set—

—where Jon Stewart was sobbing for help as he was dragged out from beneath his desk, his last refuge against the dementor that had already lowered its hood and was preparing to deliver its Kiss to its first victim of the day.

John went for his wand, as did Olivia; but at the last moment, Olivia fumbled and dropped her wand, which clattered to the floor and rolled towards the backstage partitions some distance away. As Olivia swore and dived for it, John readied himself to cast the spell, watching the dementor bring its lips towards Jon’s mouth and knowing there was no way he could get his Patronus out in time—

“ _EXPECTO PATRONUM!_ ”

The dementor shrieked and unceremoniously dropped Jon as a huge glowing Patronus—not John’s stag, but a large bird of prey, a hawk of some sort—descended on the dementor with beak and talons slashing. But unlike other Patronuses John had seen, this Patronus seemed to be corporeal, with every strike actually cutting right through the dementor as the soul-sucking creature writhed and screamed for mercy. The bird was having none of it, however, instead increasing its attacks until nothing was left of the dementor but scraps of cloth fluttering to the ground.

Olivia came back to John as the dementor’s screams faded into silence, her wand back in her hand once more. “Nice one,” she murmured, not taking her eyes off the dementor’s very slow and painful death. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be an eagle.”

“I’m not.” John’s gaze shifted to the figure vaulting over several rows of audience seats to get to Jon and help the host back to his feet. “I think he is, though.”

At that moment, the electricity chose to come back on, which flooded the whole stage with light and allowed John his first glimpse of Jon’s rescuer.

“No,” John breathed, not sure if he should trust his eyes anymore. “No bloody _way._ ”

“Fuck me,” Olivia said weakly.

“Offer appreciated,” said Stephen, limping closer with Jon leaning on him for support, “but I’m afraid I’ll have to pass.”


	3. Part Three

**2010**

Once he and Aasif had managed to send everyone else home with a successful Memory Charm and a wild tale of a gas leak that had nearly exploded around their heads and please to not tell anyone outside the job what happened (with a few exceptions: Sam and Jason had a glint in their eyes that made John suspect a fourth baby would soon be on the way in the Bee-Jones household; and Olivia wouldn’t leave until she’d scribbled her apartment’s Apparition coordinates onto Aasif’s hand and made him promise to visit that night, much to Aasif’s embarrassment and John’s amusement), John found himself sitting with a still-pale Jon and a surprisingly-quiet Stephen in Jon’s office, the three of them silently sipping on conjured hot chocolate while they waited for Aasif to join them.

Finally, Aasif walked back into the office and gave the door a satisfactory slam. “Just got off the line with the Ministry,” he announced as he sat down next to Stephen. “Umbridge is clearing out her office as we speak, right before they cart her back to Azkaban. She’s not going to be bothering you again for a while. And to top it off, they’re disbanding her committee. Her neo-Nazi bill’s not even going to make it for a vote—the Minister himself promised me he’d pull it out personally.”

“That was fast.” John set down his mug on Jon’s desk. “I didn’t think the Ministry installed a Muggle phone line since I left.”

“They didn’t.” Aasif grinned and held up his iPhone. “But if you ever wanna make a Floo call, you can bet Apple has an app for that.”

“That’s why I love my iPad,” added Stephen, speaking up for the first time. “They even have a Floo module now that hooks up straight to Skype.”

John pointed at Stephen. “I’m getting back to you in a minute,” he said, a little sharper than he’d meant to be, then turned back to Aasif. “What else did they say? I’m assuming they weren’t going to let Umbridge go back to prison without a fight.”

“True.” Aasif’s grin faded.”The Minister was balking for a while, until I told him that I had hard evidence that he’d been accepting mysterious donations into his personal Gringotts account the day before he’s signed every new bill of his term. That made him a little more willing to listen to me.”

“Remind me to send Padma something huge for Christmas.” John glanced over at Stephen. “All right, now you. Talk. How come you never said you were a wizard before?”

“Because no one ever asked.” Stephen shrugged. “And I was here before all of you, so I think I should be asking you the same question.”

“Wait,” Jon croaked from his corner. His hands were still trembling around his mug, but he looked a whole lot less dead than he had earlier. “So—you guys—are serious? Magic is—magic is real?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” John threw up his hands. “Hallo, everyone, my name used to be Harry Potter, and now I’m John Oliver and I just want to go on with my life if that’s OK! Selling the production rights to my life story clearly was a big mistake.”

“Could’ve at least chosen a better writer to do it,” Aasif muttered. “That epilogue was complete bollocks.”

Jon, however, gaped. “Harry _Potter?_ You’re telling me all that stuff is _TRUE?_ ”

Stephen barked out a laugh. “You just survived an attack by a dementor and you still have problems believing in magic? You almost lost your soul, Jon! What, is it going to take a Death Eater Avada-Kedavra’ing your ass before you learn that we’re real?”

“Look, I don’t know anything about dementors or losing my soul, but...” Jon shivered. “All I know is that I never want to be that cold ever again. It—it was like—like—”

“Like you would never feel happy again in your life?” John supplied. Jon nodded numbly. “Yeah, most Muggles can’t see dementors, but that doesn’t stop the bloody things from trying to suck your soul out. Let me guess, Stephen, they didn’t teach you that at the Salem School, did they?”

Stephen sniffed. “First of all, I only took correspondence courses from Salem—and no, they didn’t. Dementors weren’t part of most curriculums until after _you_ came around, you know.”

“Correspondence courses?” Aasif asked, surprised. “Your family didn’t let you go to Salem direct?”

“Not exactly.” Stephen scratched the back of his neck ruefully. “See, Salem had this policy of only allowing full-blood humans to attend their boarding school program—they kept it all the way through the late seventies, actually. My great-great-granddad was a Veela, which makes me one-sixteenth part-Veela, so that disqualified me from going. Also made it terribly difficult to keep a job with any major news network, let me tell you.”

“Oh, you’re part-Veela?” exclaimed John. “Well, everything makes so much more sense now!”

Stephen’s famous eyebrow went up. “How so?”

“Well, you know.” John started ticking the list off on his fingers. “Your obvious fixation with birds, your onscreen charisma, the hordes and legions of fangirls who stalk your every move, plus your apparent mating with Stewart here—”

Stephen paled dramatically, Aasif choked on his hot chocolate, but Jon just frowned. “Mating?” he asked. “What’s that mean?”

John shrugged. “It’s a Wizarding term that basically means Stephen’s Veela side imprinted on you,” he explained. “You know, like Renesmee and Jacob, only far less creepy. I’m sure Stephen knows what I’m talking about, don’t you, Stephen?”

“Oliver, that’s impossible,” Stephen croaked. “I’m married. So’s Jon.”

“Oh, like _that_ ever stopped anyone.” John rolled his eyes. “Look, it’s great if you love your wife and everything, but we’re talking about your magical biology here. My best friend’s sister-in-law just happened to mate with my best friend’s sister right after said sister-in-law got hitched to my best friend’s oldest brother. Once your Veela side kicks in, nothing in hell or on earth is going to stop you.”

“Wait a second!” Jon frantically waved his hands to get John’s attention. “Twilight references aside, what exactly does this mating entail? Stephen’s got a point, we _are_ both married...”

“Stewart, marriage has nothing to do with it!” John cried. “As far as Stephen’s Veela blood is concerned, your marriages are just pieces of paper that can be burned or ripped to pieces easier than you can say ‘boo’! Stephen, tell us, how many red lights did you run in order to get here in time?”

Stephen looked away, blushing. “Uh, five? Maybe six, or possibly seven. I wasn’t really counting. It was just—something told me I needed to be here...that Jon needed me.”

“There you go.” John crossed his arms smugly. “His Veela senses told him you were in danger, Stewart, and the first thing a Veela will always do is protect its mate from harm, no matter what they have to do to get there.”

“But—Oliver, it’s nothing like that!” Stephen protested helplessly. “I mean, yeah, Jon’s one of my best friends, but I don’t like him _that_ way!”

“Your Patronus killed the dementor, Stephen,” Aasif reminded him. “You couldn’t have done it without love.”

“And while having sex with each other is completely your own decision,” John added, “Fleur tells me Veela-induced sex is quite the reward in itself, so I’d really think twice before passing it up.”

Stephen and Jon both sputtered at that, while Aasif looked thoughtful. “Fleur Delacour? She’s your best friend’s sister-in-law?” he asked. “So it’s she and Ginny and—Bill, right? How did that work out?”

“Oh, they’ve worked out a rather intricate _ménage a trois_ that seems to make all of them completely happy and sated for the most part.” John winced. “I try not to think about it too much. The complications and possible repercussions hurt my head.”

“Ginny? Ginny Weasley?” Jon stopped sputtering long enough to stare. “So all the people from the books—they’re all real? But I thought—Harry and Ginny—aren’t they supposed to be—”

“Like Aasif said earlier, the epilogue to _Deathly Hallows_ was complete and total bollocks,” John interrupted. “Absolutely none of what was in there was true—which actually might have been a good thing, considering my current profession. Nobody would expect me to be on American telly, not when I’m supposed to be married to my school sweetheart with a Ministry job and three kids.”

Jon blinked. “I—guess so, sure. But what happened to everyone else?”

“Weeeell, I’ve already told you about Ginny and Fleur...” John took a moment to think. “Ron Weasley went into Quidditch, last I heard. Playing for the Chudley Cannons, married Lavender Brown from Hogwarts, they’ve more kids than I can count on one hand. I see them sometimes when I go back to Britain—Andy’s got a little Weasley blood in him, you know, but on the Squib side. George still runs Weasley Wizarding Wheezes, though I think he’s gotten a government contract from the Muggle side to make some of his items usable in chemical warfare. Teddy Lupin’s at Hogwarts—good lad, doing well in school, he still writes every once in a while. Neville’s teaching Herbology there, too, so Rowling at least got that part right—and Draco Malfoy is still an arsehole who works for the Ministry and who should be wandering somewhere near inner Mongolia at this very moment.”

“Hang on,” Stephen said. “Aren’t you leaving out Hermione Granger? She’s my kids’ favorite. What happened to her?”

“Now isn’t that a mystery for the ages,” Aasif cut in before John could answer. “Plenty of people in the wizarding world would love to have an answer to that question, Stephen. Thing is, after the war was over, Hermione Granger—vanished. Poof, gone. No one’s seen her since, and all her records disappeared with her—it’s like she never even existed.”

“Vanished? Seriously?” Stephen frowned. “Did the Death Eaters get to her?”

“Who knows?” Aasif shrugged. “Some think they did, while others think she just ran away from her past—kind of like John here, except she was far more thorough about it if that’s true. For all we know, she might still be running.”

“She’s probably fine,” John said, sounding distant as if he was deep in thought. “Hermione’s a smart girl, and a strong one. I’m sure she’s doing well—wherever she is.”

 

 **2008**

“Hey! Stop! I said, _stop!_ ”

“You’re under arrest! All of you!”

“If you don’t stop, I’m calling for backup! STOP!”

John didn’t pay the shouts behind him any heed, instead focusing his energy on sprinting through the hallways of the crowded hotel without knocking over some innocent bystander. As far as he could tell, Josh and the cameraman (whose name John could not for the life of him remember) were keeping up well enough behind him, and behind _them_ were the dreaded hotel security who were in the process of chasing the whole _Daily Show_ crew out of the ongoing RNC convention for what they called “disorderly conduct” and what Jon Stewart would later call “proper journalistic satire.”

John nearly stumbled over a covered room service dish left by someone’s door, swore, and kept on going. Bugger if he was going to add getting arrested to breaking his nose while filming for a field piece; and it wasn’t like he’d been actively disruptive, not like Aasif and Wyatt had managed a few times, because he’d only managed to ask a few people for interviews before they’d set security on him—

“Oi, glasses! In here!”

Up ahead, John saw a woman lean out of her doorway and frantically wave him over. He didn’t think twice before making the requested detour, straight into her hotel room with Josh and cameraman in tow. The woman quickly closed the door behind them, blocking out the confused and angry shouts of their pursuers when they arrived and found nothing but an empty corridor.

It took the three of them a few minutes to catch their breath, and John was the first to recover completely. “Thanks for the help, Miss—” he began, then stopped dead when he got his first look at their hostess.

She blinked, grinned shyly, and tucked a stray lock of blonde-brown hair behind her ear in embarrassment. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it...Harry.”

“It’s John now,” John replied automatically, while at the same time Josh looked up and asked incredulously, “Do you two know each other?”

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I forgot to introduce myself...” The woman drew her wand in a fluid motion, almost faster than the eye could track. “ _Obliviate!_ ”

Josh and the cameraman both stumbled backwards at the force of the spell, but John remained untouched—he hadn’t even needed to cast his shield charm. The woman turned back to him as she tucked her wand back into her shirtsleeve. “We have a minute until they recover,” she said to John in a low voice, her American accent easily slipping into a more natural British one. “It—it’s good to see you again, Harry—I mean, John. Really.”

“ _Jesus,_ ” John breathed. He reached out and brushed the woman’s cheek with his fingers; contrary to what he’d expected, she was made entirely of real and warm flesh and blood. Her hair was no longer bushy and brown, and her eyes were even a light blue instead of the warm brown that he remembered—but there was no way he could mistake that face, or that voice. “I thought—weren’t you—where’ve you _been?_ ”

“I’m sorry, John, I just can’t tell you now...” The woman took a deep breath, then grabbed a hotel pen from the nearby desk and wrote a phone number onto John’s palm. “Look, here’s my mobile number. Call me tonight, and I’ll tell you everything. I promise.”

Josh and the cameraman, who had both been standing off to the side in a trancelike state, simultaneously shook themselves awake. “So sorry for barging in like this, ma’am,” Josh said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “We’ll get out of your way now—”

“Oh, it’s no problem at all!” The woman’s American accent was back in full force, and she moved away from John to shake Josh and the cameraman’s hands. “Please, call me Kate. And you can stay here as long as you need to—all of you.”

When Kate finally came back around to shake his hand, John couldn’t stop himself from grinning like an idiot.

 

 **2010**

“Well, that went reasonably better than expected,” Aasif said to John as they walked down the street, away from the studio and towards the subway station that would take Aasif home.

John sighed and shoved his hands deeper in his pockets, not responding. Aasif looked at him closely. “Hey, are you OK?”

“Yeah,” John mumbled, scuffing at the sidewalk with his toe. “Just—I feel guilty, y’know? Because of me, three completely innocent bystanders died. They’ve probably got families and everything, and it’s only because some arseholes were trying to get to _me—_ ”

“Whoa, wait a second.” Aasif slowed his pace and laid a hand on John’s arm. “Before you start blaming yourself, remember exactly who killed them. I’m pretty sure you weren’t holding the wand responsible, were you? No, of course not. And besides, if it weren’t for you, more people would have died. You saved Stewart’s life, for Merlin’s sake!”

“If you really want to get technical about it, that was Stephen.” John grinned weakly. “But thanks for the consolation. The Wizarding Consulate is going to notify the families, right?”

“They probably already have by now.” Aasif paused as they reached the entrance to the station. “Here’s my stop. You sure you’ll be all right getting home?”

“I’ll be fine.” John waved Aasif away. “Don’t forget to send Olivia my love!”

“Oh, bugger off,” Aasif replied, but he said it without rancor. “Tell the missus I said hello.”

“I will, but she’s not the missus yet. Rolling in sin, we both are. So I guess I’ll see you in hell! Oh, wait, we already work there.”

Aasif was still standing by the steps to the subway and laughing his head off when John rounded the corner into a nearby alley. After scaring a few pigeons who’d been busy scavenging for dinner, John shook himself off of a few errant gray feathers, closed his eyes, and twisted on his heels. No one seemed to notice when he disappeared with a small _pop!—_

—and no one was around to notice when he reappeared on a quiet residential street in a suburb many miles away.

John let his mind wander as he made his way up the sidewalk that led to one of the many identical houses in the neighborhood. As a child growing up in Little Whinging, he certainly hadn’t imagined that he’d wind up living in a similar situation, masquerading as just another nine-to-fiver coming home from work to find a pretty housewife waiting for him with dinner cooling on the table. But it wasn’t as if he minded the subdued normalcy of it all, and Kate certainly didn’t complain, especially since it allowed her to work from the comfort of their home in relative peace.

Ah, Kate. John decided to wait on telling her about the day’s events until after dinner was over. There wasn’t any need to worry her just yet. As John climbed the front steps and started to unlock the door, he allowed himself to think of the Hermione Granger he once knew at Hogwarts. No doubt, if Hermione knew about what had happened today, she’d have one of her rare but infamous tantrums and wind up throwing whatever she had handy at his head.

John smiled, deep in nostalgia, and slowly pushed open the front door—

—and ducked just in time as a plate came flying past, smashing into a dozen pieces when it hit the concrete porch outside the doorway.

“HARRY JAMES POTTER!” came a shriek from the direction of the kitchen, and that was when John knew he was in serious trouble. “YOU POLLYCOCKING FOOL!”

John carefully stepped all the way inside and closed the door behind him before calling back tentatively, “Uh, yes? I’m—home?”

Kate came into view in the kitchen doorway, her hair just as wild as it once used to be. “Don’t you try that innocent farce with me, mister!” she cried, brandishing a toasting fork as she stormed closer. “I just got an owl from Arthur Weasley telling me that we were in danger, and why?” She poked the fork at John’s chest accusingly. “Because someone had the complete and utter lack of brains to insult Dolores Umbridge and the Ministry to their face, that’s why!”

“It wasn’t to her face, it was by owl,” John weakly protested. “And it wasn’t anything, Sam and I were able to take them on by ourselves, and Stephen managed the dementor by himself, so—”

That turned out to be the wrong thing to say. “A _dementor?!_ ” Kate shrieked. “Oh, the nerve of them—and the nerve of _you!_ You don’t tickle a sleeping dragon, Harry, haven’t you learned that yet? You could’ve gotten hurt, or killed! What in Merlin’s name were you _thinking?_ ”

In response, John pulled Kate into a tight hug; she at first resisted the embrace, but finally she collapsed into his arms, sobbing from relief. “Oh, Harry,” she mumbled, clutching at his shirtfront. “I’m sorry, I was just so _worried..._ ”

“Shh, Kate.” John stroked her hair comfortingly as she cried against his shoulder. “Hermione. I know, it’s okay. I’m here, love, I’m here.”


	4. Deleted Scenes

“All right, everyone, listen up,” John called to the assembled crowd. “Quick poll. Who among us is a wizard, or a witch? Raise your hand!”

Sam and Aasif’s hands immediately went up, as did (to John’s surprise) Olivia’s. “Seriously?” John heard Aasif mutter to Sam. “Why is it _always_ the hot ones?”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam stage-whispered back.

Kristen looked uncertain. “Does it count if I’m Wiccan?”

“And, uh,” Wyatt began, “if I’m pretty sure my grandma knew some freaky voodoo charms, should I still say yes?”

John facepalmed.

* *

“So I’ve been meaning to ask,” Aasif said as the two of them walked towards the subway. “How _did_ you come up with that name of yours? Isn’t John a bit—common?”

“So’s Harry.” John shoved his hands deeper in his pockets. “That’s what I was going for, actually. If I’m trying to blend into the Muggle world, why not go with the most overused boy’s name in the history of the world? As for Oliver—well, I’ve always liked Dickens, and _Oliver Twist_ in particular. It’s just—Oliver was someone I could identify with, you know?”

“Because he was an orphan?”

“No, because he was world-famous from a young age and hated it. Yes, of _course_ because he was an orphan.”

* *

“Being part-Veela isn’t all fun and games,” Stephen said. “For one thing, it makes it awfully hard to get a job with any major news network.”

“Oh, come on,” Aasif scoffed. “Then what’s CNN doing with Anderson Cooper? There’s a half-Veela if I ever saw one.”

“Uh, hello? He’s also a goddamn _Vanderbilt._ ” Stephen rolled his eyes. “I’d bet CNN wouldn’t care less if his father was a giant, much less a Veela.”

John shrugged. “Or they just have a really shoddy background check. I mean, Larry King’s clearly a vampire, and they kept him around until he bloody _retired._ ”

* *

“John.” John turned around on his way out the door to find Sam staring at him. “I know this is kind of a personal question but—would you mind telling me how long your wand is?”

“Eleven inches.” John frowned when Sam’s eyes went wide. “Wait, are we talking about the same thing here?"


End file.
